During the COVID-19 lockdown, when most corporate training stopped, Michael Teoh led his company, Thriving Talents, to pivot from their usual corporate consulting, team building, and employee training practices to work with SMEs to help their sales teams market and sell better and to boost the performance of work-from-home staff.
Since then, Thriving Talents have helped 150 companies generate 5-to-6-figure revenue within the initial 3-month lockdown period. They have also taught thousands of remote staff in Malaysia, India, Singapore, Australia and the US on “Mental Health & Productivity.”
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Michael accumulated 16 years of experience, working in various capacities as a Management Consultant, Branding Strategist, Outreach Campaigns Director, and Serial Entrepreneur. Michael has served Fortune 500 Companies across 41 countries.
“As long as you’re willing. There will always be a path for a better future for you.”
Michael Teoh
Michael had just started his company, Thriving Talents, in 2013 when he made his worst investment ever. He was very fortunate when he first started. The company got big clients, including fortune 500 companies. Michael was bathing in grandiose and in the prestige of working with the world’s largest, most influential organizations, leaders, and brands. He was making progress in life.
Michael was approached to invest in crude oil. The investment company told him that he could be the trader trading derivatives and commodities. But since he did not have millions of dollars to do that, they advised him to get into drilling the crude oil. Michael figured that made sense.
What Michael was buying was land in Canada and the British Virgin Islands so that the investment company could extract crude oil out of it. The company promised Michael a fair return of 12% per year. The return sounded relatively little to Michael, but the company convinced him that anyone promising him 12% a month instead of a year was a scam.
Michael did the math quickly and realized that he would get $10,000 every month in return if he were to invest a million dollars. But because he did not have this kind of money, Michael called his grandmother and parents and asked them to join and put their entire savings into it. Though they were not computer savvy, they could not transfer funds luckily missed out on the opportunity.
True to their word, the investment company paid Michael his 12% per year for about a year. Now that he had received his money, they asked him to recommend them to other CEOs and friends. While Micahel wanted to share this excellent investment plan with other people, for some reason, he didn’t have that chance to be active and to be serious in promoting it to his inner circle.
One and a half years later, the company stopped paying. Michael asked them about it, and they told him not to worry; it was just a minor problem with the transaction. Because they had built Michael’s trust for an entire year, he allowed them to pay him in the next six months. Then after six months, they just disappeared.
In the one and a half years that the company was paying Michael,...